BBC managers - sleaze and nepotism is rife

[TonyGosling]

Amazing set of investigations by the Daily Mail who have identified the BBC as becoming a pernicious influence on the nation run by self-serving control freaks who have lost all contact with ordinary people.
Some good programmes nevertheless continue to be made DESPITE these money-grubbing gnomes.

The BBC Director and his family business: Samir Shah's wife, sister and brother also employed by Auntie
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1204874/The-BBC-Director-famil y-business-Samir-Shahs-wife-sister-brother-employed-Auntie.html

A BBC boss and a 'conflict of interest': Her family firm trains stars for the corporation
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1203890/A-BBC-boss-conflict-fa mily-firm-trains-stars-corporation.html

How BBC keeps it in the family: As another woman boss comes under attack, how corporation paid £1.2m last year to firms with inside connections

A staggering £1.2million has been paid by the BBC in the past year to companies owned by relatives of corporation executives.

Details of the huge pay-outs emerged as another BBC boss came under fire yesterday over her husband's lucrative links with the broadcaster.

Days after the revelation that BBC1 controller Jay Hunt helps run her husband's media training company which coaches BBC staff, the second row involved Jana Bennett, the third highest paid executive at the corporation on a basic salary of £406,000 a year.



High-powered wives: Jana Bennett's (left) husband's company received £715,000 last year while Jay Hunt's husband's company made £117,000 profit last year

The BBC vision director's husband Richard Clemmow is a director and 10 per cent stakeholder in Juniper Communications, which received £715,000 of the £1.2million in the last year.

Altogether the company has raked in more than £2million of licence-payers' cash for making programmes for the BBC.

The chief executive and majority shareholder in Juniper is Samir Shah, a non-executive member on the BBC board, and his wife Belkis is the third shareholder.

The fresh revelations raised new doubts about the BBC's conflict of interest regulations and prompted renewed calls from MPs for a formal investigation by the corporation's governing body.

Tory MP Philip Davies, who sits on the Commons-Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee-said: 'These are substantial sums of money and the issue needs to be formally investigated by the BBC Trust.

'It doesn't immediately follow that this is necessarily corrupt, immoral or not right but it certainly does lead to questions being asked, and perfectly reasonable questions.'

Earlier this week the BBC was under pressure to investigate Miss Hunt's role as company secretary of BrightsparkTV, a media training company owned by her husband Ian Blandford.

The company has a contract with the BBC to coach staff and uses the corporation's studios for some of its sessions.

It reported pre-tax profits of £117,618 last year, up from £68,674 in the previous 12 months.
Enlarge BBC network of relatives

The broadcaster said the BBC1 controller, who earns up to £280,000 a year, has an unpaid role with the company and there was no conflict of interest.

Among the first to leap to Miss Hunt's defence was Jana Bennett, who said her fellow executive had nothing to apologise for.

'Jay is in the news because her husband runs a media training business, and like many home-based family businesses Jay is its company secretary,' she wrote in a blog for the Guardian.

Forty-eight hours later came news that Miss Bennett's own husband was benefiting handsomely from his work with the BBC.

Company accounts show that since 2006 the BBC has paid Juniper £2,285,835. It received £623,881 in 2006, £946,693 in 2007 and £715,261 last year................

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1204698/Husband-senior-BBC-bos s-paid-2million-make-shows--BBC.html

[TonyGosling]

BBC auction show pulled off air after fresh 'faking it' scandal
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1208308/BBC-auction-pulled-air -fresh-faking-scandal.html

.....A Reef spokesman said: 'We wish to apologise unreservedly for misleading viewers and the BBC. The company recognises it is a serious breach of editorial standards of which the BBC was not made aware.

'Reef Television will co-operate fully with the BBC's investigation and has launched its own inquiry.'

It is two years since the BBC was hit by a series of scandals. Shows such as Children In Need, Blue Peter and Comic Relief featured phone-ins where production staff pretended to be winners.